Bando E, Ji X, Kattan MW, et al. - This study provides the first ever newly developed pretreatment gastric cancer nomogram that enables accurate prediction of disease-specific mortality (DSM), which can be employed for patient counseling in clinical practice.

• Data for 5,231 gastric cancer patients were used to construct the prediction model, and for external validation, an independent cohort of 389 gastric cancer patients from a different institution was used.

• By selecting 14 prognostic factors, the nomogram was constructed, and good discrimination was shown by the new nomogram for DSM.

• This nomogram yielded C-index of 0.713 (AJCC [American Joint Committee on Cancer], 0.582) in the external validation cohort.

• Good performance of the nomogram was evident, internally and externally, in the calibration and decision curve analysis.

• Strong correlations of host-related factors, including age and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status, with competing risks were identified.